He Cheated On Me With A Hooker—And It Broke Me

He Cheated On Me With A Hooker—And It Broke Me

He Cheated On Me With A Hooker—And It Broke Me

I'd had a long day; fresh from a family funeral in Connecticut, I was back in Manhattan. I'd been helping a friend pack, waiting for my boyfriend of six weeks to get home so I could sleep at his place. Finally, we were in his apartment and did what we normally did: have frantic, hot, wonderful sex. Then he fell asleep.

I had work to do so I went quietly into the living room. I was having trouble getting online with my laptop, so I logged into my email account using his. At least, I tried to. When I went to gmail.com, his inbox popped up.

This is not my proudest moment. I started reading. Snooping, if you will. His inbox yielded nothing, but I was still curious. I wanted to see what, if anything, he was telling his friends about me. I wanted to get some clue as to whether or not I was a long-term prospect because I was smitten—already dreaming of having his babies.

I don't know what I expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t the numerous "Massage in fifteen minutes?" messages sent from him to random Craigslist addresses. My first thought wasn’t shock so much as rationalization. I thought maybe he really was getting massages; regular people do that. I couldn't equate the man I knew with the person whose hidden side I was getting a peek at.

I kept going, and my stomach dropped as I realized that "massage" was simply Internet parlance for sex. All the time we'd been together, when he'd refused to use condoms—until I finally went on the Pill—he'd been hiring, or trying to hire, hookers. I could tell at least one of his attempts had been successful; a woman emailed back to say that he'd left a piece of jewelry behind with her. Another response, from an escort site which I promptly visited, made the imagery all too real.

And I had just told him I loved him. In a card, but still, I wanted him to know. “You have my heart," I wrote inside an image of that bloody, messy, complex organ. It was early, but things seemed to be moving along quickly—for me, anyway. So he knew how I felt about him and was somehow compelled to do this anyway. It didn’t make any sense. Was he a sex addict, I wondered. Did he even care about me at all?

I stayed up all night that night, unable to sleep or work or even think. I couldn’t believe that the nice Jewish guy I was falling so hard for, the one with the high-powered job and Upper West Side apartment, who could be so sweet and tender, was doing this. I felt disgusted.

I didn’t say anything to him the next morning. I just gathered what little I’d stored at his place and left. It all felt like a dream—especially since I was so overtired. When I finally confronted him a few days later, he told me it “had nothing to do with me.” I was stunned all over again by the realization that he could rationalize it that way. If that were true, his ability to compartmentalize sex—something he also engaged in with me—made me realize we would never have worked in the long-term.

In the months afterward, I was very angry. I felt betrayed and sick to my stomach, and there are times now when I still do. In my weaker moments, I'd visit the page of the escort I knew he'd corresponded with and stare at the girl I saw on the screen, wondering what her life was like, whether they ever met, and if so, what he did with her. I was convinced that if I could just figure out why he chose this behavior, I could figure him out.

When I repeated this to a friend, she said to me, "But you would do anything." Meaning anything sexual. And, yes, that's probably true. I'm not known for my sexual reticence. But the more I pondered it, the more I realized it very likely wasn't about performing some specific sexual act. It was about doing so with someone who didn't know him, didn't care about him, and didn't want to; someone with no expectations, no strings.

Cheating with a hooker is worse than a regular affair, in my opinion.

Falling for someone else is understandable, even though it hurts. Paying for random sex is not. It hurts in a different way, not so much because of the money, but because of the randomness. It's like saying that sex "with anyone" is better than sex with you, the real, live, and yes, imperfect, person he's committed to.

With the passage of time, I see things a little differently. I don't detest him but instead feel sorry for him. And what hurts me the most, even now, is that he couldn't find a way to tell me that something was wrong, that things were out of control. I was so in love with him—to be honest, a little part of me still is— that I would have found a way to deal with it. Not accept or embrace it, but confront it, puzzle it out.

I understand being out of control, being self-destructive. My methods are different (binging, shopping, moping), but I think the feelings are the same. Instead, I found out in such a horrific way that it rattles my sense of self and trust to this day.

While it's easy to ask why, say, a wife would stand by her husband, I can almost understand it. I can't compare my brief relationship to a marriage, but I can see how it takes a while to process this sort of betrayal, how you don't want to believe your man could go there.

It's not a black and white situation, to be sure. As much as I'd like to hate my ex, I don't. Nor do I forgive him. I just wish I understood him a little better. I guess I'll have to save that for my next relationship.

Because music and sex really do go hand-in-hand, researchers have found that when it comes to cheaters, 41 percent of them prefer rock music to all other genres. Falling in line after that, respectively, is pop music (16 percent), country music (11 percent), classical music (7 percent) and rap/hip-hop came in last place with only 2 percent of cheaters favoring that stuff. Takeaway? Kanye and Kim really have a chance!

For some reason, a long time ago, a rumor was started that when it came to infidelity, men held the honor of being the most likely to stray, but it’s a lie! Not only do women cheat, but studies have found the difference between the two sexes is that usually when women stray, it's to fulfill an emotional need as opposed to a physical one. Emotional involvement is pretty much just one or two steps away from a completely kaput relationship that can't be saved. Purely physical entanglements might still have a chance of getting a relationship back on track.

Cheating doesn't necessarily mean that the cheater thinks their relationship is the absolute pits. While that’s not to suggest that every cheater feels this way, but the majority of those who commit adultery are happy in their lives and relationships, and aren’t even looking for a break-up. According to a Rutgers University study, 56 percent of men who had affairs were happy with their partners, while 34 percent of women who cheated were also really content in their relationship. They just do it, because, well, they can.

According to intimacy expert Mary Jo Rapini, once that sex drive is awoken in the cheating party, sometimes after years of hibernation, things can go from zero to 20 with their spouse fast. It might seem like things have turned around with all that extra attention, but in reality, there's a little somethin' somethin' going on elsewhere.

Oh, dear. It sounds like something out of a How To Be A Good Wife handbook from 1957, but it's true. As UCLA researcher Dr. Martie Haselton explains, "We found that women were most attracted to men other than their primary partner when they were in the high fertility phase of the menstrual cycle. That's the day of ovulation and several days beforehand." Yikes! Not only that, but women feel sexier when their body is in tip-top mode to make a baby, so combine that with their desire for men other than their partner and we have a double yikes situation.

It may sound like the most ridiculous thing in the world, but according to marriage and family therapist Susan Mandel, PhD, men who love their spouses think that by going outside their marriage, they can save it. Perhaps it's a difficult concept to swallow, but in their brains, they think they can have it all, and therefore it will lead to less of a longing for something else.

It may be comforting to think that if your partner is going to cheat, it will be with a one-night stand, but cheaters tend to stick closer to home. In fact, the most common place for an affair to blossom is at work. Research has found that 85 percent of cheating starts amongst coworkers, with friends and neighbors not being too far behind.

Think about the burden it must be to carry around such a weight day in and day out! The guilt! The secrecy! The fear of, "OMG! Am I about to be found out?” Welp, cheaters, some of you actually want to be found out after all. According to Scott Haltzman, MD, a clinical professor at Brown University and author of The Secrets of Happy Married Men, "People may actually set it up so the spouse or partner find out. Whether it's lipstick on the collar or emails left open on the family computer, we leave our fingerprints everywhere. Oftentimes, it's a cry to say 'I need to get help.' Some people make it obvious because they want to stop but don't know how." Well then. I guess we can’t all live with being conniving and deceitful forever, now can we? Go us!